Wash, dry, and fold laundry services are found throughout the United States and in foreign countries where commercial laundry services are provided to the retail public. All segments of the adult population utilize these services to varying degrees. Indeed, a number of working adults, students, and retirees commonly avail themselves of these services as a means to reallocate their time to other more important or more enjoyable tasks, or to simply avoid doing the laundering tasks themselves. The Coin Laundry Association (“CLA”), the national trade association to the laundromat industry, estimates that approximately 64% of all laundromats in the United States (i.e., over 19,000 stores) provide wash, dry, and fold services. Further, it is thought that more than 80% of the orders that are processed for wash, dry, and fold services are done so by the customer bringing their laundry to the laundromat to be serviced and then returning to the laundromat to pick-up their order at an expected completion time.
For the remaining orders that are still facilitated through a traditional pick-up and delivery process, however, there currently exists several, longstanding logistical challenges, the least of which is justifying the cost of the vehicle and driver. For instance, in most cases, the service charge for a wash, dry, and fold service is based on the weight of the order, and will thus vary depending upon the amount of clothes needing to be serviced. This variance in the amount of clothes needing to be laundered though frequently causes the traditional pick-up and delivery process to be economically prohibitive for some vendors and has thus forced some vendors to charge a minimum for their laundry services, regardless of the weight of the order. However, even when vendors charge a minimum price, it is still the case that laundry orders that are processed via the traditional pick-up and delivery process must still be weighed at the time of pick-up or upon returning to the laundromat, and thus still require an extra step for the vendor.
As another example of the logistical challenges that are common with traditional pick-up and delivery laundry processes, it should also be noted that many laundromat operators have avoided the pick-up and delivery of wash, dry, and fold orders because of the great dispersion of customer locations and because of the variables that are associated with synchronizing pick-up and delivery times with the customers in order to facilitate the process itself as well as payment by the customers. Payment for wash, dry, and fold services has traditionally occurred either at the time of the pick-up of the order, if the customer is available, or afterward. However, this process is grossly inefficient as it requires either the driver facilitating the pick-up of the order to also function as a cashier for the transaction, or it requires the laundromat to develop a billing system and procedure that monitors the accounts for the picked up but unpaid transactions.
Accordingly, a new method and system for providing laundry services, including wash, dry, and fold laundry services, that does not rely on the customer traveling to a laundromat to bring their soiled laundry for servicing and then returning to pick-up their completed order would be highly convenient and potentially desirable to all customer segments taking advantage of the service.